Welcome to the Age of Nothing
Over the course of the universe we have seen many ages: golden, enlightened, Cambrian and as we slide to the end of 2009 it is clear to me we have entered a new age; a yet heretofore recognized age – the Age of Nothing.
Never before in the course of human history have we been so closely linked to one another. Technology has opened up worlds of possibility to us. We can, thanks to the internet, talk to people around the world, have instantaneous reporting from even the most remote parts of the world and watch history as it unfolds before our very eyes.
I think it is fair to say that our forbearers could never have conceived of the world we live in today. The men of the Canadian military who boarded boats to Europe and Asia to fight for King and Country in the Second World War could not have fathomed a day would come when drone bombers flying in Afghanistan and dropping bombs would be controlled in Nevada.
‘Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes’ has become ‘Don’t fire until the target appears on the radar screen.’
Survivors of the Killing Fields in Cambodia, the disappeared of Argentina and apartheid in South Africa among others are left to imagine how different their experiences might have been if they had been able to take to Twitter and let the world know, in real time, of the oppression and genocide.
We are on the cusp of so many breakthroughs – in medical research, scientific research and the very capacity of us ourselves.
And yet in the face of this previously unimagined access to each other what are we doing? What is to be our legacy?
So far? Nothing.
We are more plugged in and yet at the same time less connected. We no longer debate, we defeat. We don’t discuss, we dismiss. Should your opinion not be exactly like mine there is no room for dialogue. We are only interested in the monologue.
Social networking, Twitter especially, has proven at times to have an enormous influence on the immediate. The flow of information from
We post opinions, espousing them as fact; hammering people over the head should they deign to disagree (a sin I may be guilty of from time to time.) The more we know of each other, the more we share, the more fearful we are that people will – gasp! – disagree with us. These days dissent is viewed with as much affection as H1N1. It is through debate, discussion and disagreement that we grow. Opinions are meant to be swayable in light of new or more pertinent information. We should never be so rooted to a position that we are unable to respond to a sharp bend in the road.
As people refuse more and more to live “off camera” because it is their right to tell everyone everything, we fall off the path of where we were headed. Per the site’s advertising package, 13.5 million unique visitors scroll the pages of Perez Hilton.com every month. There are NGOs, governments and legitimate news organizations who would give pretty much anything to have a tenth of that traffic to their sites. While I am relatively confident that Mario Lavandeira is a good guy, I don’t feel the same about Perez Hilton. I will readily admit I have visited the gossip pages and snickered and rolled my eyes what’s being reported – my feet are clay covered like everyone else’s. But as I do, I’m aware it’s like drinking a can of Coke – tastes sweet going down but the sugar is going to rot my gut. Gossip sites, while at times harmless fun, are the greatest product of the Age of Nothing. They are pages and pages and pages of information and pictures that contribute nothing to the village. Garbage in. Garbage out.
If the world is indeed, as McLuhan suggested, a global village, what the heck are we all doing hanging out in the village outhouse?
There has been, of late, a huge hue and cry about our rights. “MY RIGHTS!” People shout from the rooftops as if it is an absolute that supersedes all. This Age of Nothing has been marked by pockets of Entitlement. We focus on what we are owed rather than what we owe. Kanye West doesn’t like the result of a video popularity contest and he reacts like a boor. He is, after all, entitled to his “feelings.” Serena Williams doesn’t like the call in a tennis game (emphasis on the word ‘game’ here) and she threatens a woman, almost a foot shorter and 80 pounds lighter, with the presence of tennis ball in her gullet. She is allowed, entitled, because this was important to her and what matters to her is of greater importance than everything else. Joe Wilson, ignorant that institutions and office require respect even if the office holder or institutional leaders are not to your way of thinking, yells out that the President lies. Free speech is his right, after all.
The Age of Enlightenment advocated for reason as the primary source for legitimacy and authority. The Age of Nothing advocates for ‘me first’ as the primary source period. For all the talk of our individual rights there is no talk of our individual responsibilities; as though we believe the two aren’t related. Free speech is a right but it is also a responsibility – you must use it judiciously and powerfully. Responsibility is something that was easily understood and accepted in times before this. Now, if we make a mistake, we call press conferences, write books, cry on cue or shrug it off as being the fault of anything but our own actions. It was our parents, the drugs, the lack of hugs or too many of them, the violent cartoons, the vaccines, the sugar, the meat, the hole in the ozone layer or not getting good Halloween candy when we were six. It was those things and many more but it was not us. We can tweet it, blog it, facebook it or text it so long as it’s clear we aren’t responsible for it.
Because if we are responsible we must do something. Not nothing but something.
And if we do something then we need to discuss and debate and disagree but ultimately work together.
And if we work together then we will probably produce something. Something.
And while it may sound less romantic than the Age of Enlightenment, the Age of Something is a much better legacy than the Age of Nothing.
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